Minervois.

Day three began too early. Alarm at six is pointless when owls, mosquitoes and an other thing are busy throughout the evening. So I rolled over and jumped back out of bed around 6:45.

The host at this campsite were excellent and I feel enthusiastic about another 30 kilometres in the heat. So far it's a bit chillier than yesterday, but we are a bit higher up than Capestang, and I'm grateful for layers.

A happy cyclist from Valence gave me some peaches, and the host gave me some plums, which I am grateful to receive! So I give the two dogs on the campsite my love because it's better to give what doesn't diminish with the giving?

***

Part one down. Coffee in Olonzac and rearranged the sack. Eat a plum and the little cheese I've left from day one, with the bread of the same, and I'm off.

Lost sight of the Coquille, my erstwhile indicator, disappeared the scene from Olonzac so I had no indication whether I was anywhere nearer to Azille. I was totally heading southwards, not south east. As I realised this all I had left to do was to cheat across vineyards and through olive groves until I was running parallel. Once I finally reached Azille, for repase, nothing was open. Quite annoying, but this happens in France. Some days they close all the eateries in one town. I guess it's so they spread the business about, especially during low season. Luckily I had enough left from copious evening meal and huge breakfast to bring my energy levels back to ready for the final section.

Run into another hiccup as the place to stay is full. My bad. I forgot the procedure to call ahead yesterday. Well I didn't truly forget as I thought it being close season I'd be fine. Got a huge bed in a Chambre d'hôtes but it's more costly. On a less common route, of the Way of Saint James, keeping expenses down is not always feasible. My usual option: staying with a priest or in a monastery is also not an option here. However I need a full night's sleep, undisturbed by nature, to get my mood correct ...

***

Today was clearly a "game of two halves"! It's Friday ... No one told me! No wonder the place I was going to stay was full...
Covered in bites, a bit drunk on a free bottle of Viognier and now full on average pizza. The road to Carcassonne goes through the town and it's Friday. No one told me. It's rammed everywhere. Local people are having domestic questions, watching me at every opportunity, the zip on these shorts is no more and I am advised it's going to rain for "deus jours".

This is a wine rich town where getting nice wine in a bar is impossible. So silly. Today is, apparently, Friday and no one here likes the local AOC Minervois. Buggered if I understand.

In the bar they jabber in conversation, somewhere down an alley a boy plays basket, the wind increases and the local birds seem perturbed. The flash I thought was lightning is a bloody stupid notice board. A guy sits next to me, in this crap town, smoking his dirty lungs for Friday in a Portuguese dialect. The locals who fetch in the harvest are direct from Portugal. Without foreigners fawning over us rich Europeans what would get completed? Look everywhere, in our culture and it's an underbelly of those without an option who are forced to provide for the nation's wealth. Are these the new locals who in on hundred years will complain of another foreigner.

It's Friday, and I forgot, but I shouldn't overlook this bed I have to relax within. Tomorrow is another thirty until Carcassonne, destination one! But my zipper has failed.